National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development

NABARD is an apex institution accredited with all matters concerning policy, planning and operations in the field of credit for agriculture and other economic activities in rural areas. It is an apex refinancing agency for the institutions providing investment and production credit for promoting the various developmental activities in rural areas . It takes measures towards institution building for improving absorptive capacity of the credit delivery system, including monitoring, formulation of rehabilitation schemes, restructuring of credit institutions, training of personnel, etc. It co-ordinates the rural financing activities of all the institutions engaged in developmental work at the field level and maintains liaison with Government of India, State Governments, Reserve Bank of India and other national level institutions concerned with policy formulation. It prepares, on annual basis, rural credit plans for all districts in the country; these plans form the base for annual credit plans of all rural financial institutions It undertakes monitoring and evaluation of projects refinanced by it. It promotes research in the fields of rural banking, agriculture and rural development . Reserve Bank of India (RBI) established in 1935 interalia, with a mandate to set up a special Agricultural Credit Department (ACD) with expert staff. ACD(RBI) interalia, initiated different measures to develop a healthy rural credit structure and provided guidance to State Governments and Cooperative Credit Structure. Agricultural Refinance Corporation (ARC) was established in 1963 to support investment credit needs for agricultural development. Consequent to undertaking of development and promotional functions, ARC was renamed as Agricultural Refinance and Development Corporation (ARDC) in 1972. RBI, at the instance of Government of India (GOI) appointed a Committee to Review Arrangements for Institutional Credit for Agriculture and Rural Development (CRAFICARD) in 1979. The CRAFICARD reviewed the need of integrating short-term, medium-term and long-term agriculture credit structure. The CRAFICARD recommended the establishment of NABARD. National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development Act, 1981 was passed by the Indian Parliament and NABARD was established on 12 July 1982 with an initial capital of Rs. 100 crore. The capital is enhanced to Rs.2000 crore subscribed by Govt. of India and Reserve Bank of India. The Regional office of NABARD functions near statue in Trivandrum. For more

For more details – www.nabard.org